College media outlets work through evolution of email, social media interviews

By eCampus News staff and wire reports

August 19th, 2013

“I don’t allow email interviews in any of the classes I teach — except one. If I didn’t allow email interviews in the class tied to The Lantern, we’d never put out a paper.” I’ve recited those lines to students and others here at Ohio State many times in the three years I’ve served as student media adviser. Am I being dramatic? I’ve been told I can be. Am I exaggerating? No. Some college newspapers have made headlines in the last year for “banning” email interviews, Poynter reports. This Poynter story has a nice roundup of bans announced by three of them. Reading about such edicts, I wondered how the papers could truly ban email interviews and continue to function. With that in mind, I spoke to and, yes, emailed with the editors of 10 prominent college-media outlets. When discussing interview preferences, all ranked email a distant third behind in-person and telephone calls by staff writers, treating them as a last resort.